What a difference a year makes…
Max Verstappen came home to take a popular victory at the 2019 German Grand Prix after an incredibly eventful race which was dominated by ever-changing weather conditions. The race started under a safety car but, after it came in, we experienced the first post-safety-car standing start. And from there, the madness never really stopped.
Strap yourself in: this might be a long write-up.
Lewis Hamilton led away from pole but Verstappen, alongside him on the front row, suffered severely with wheelspin and dropped back behind Valtteri Bottas and the Alfa Romeo of Kimi Räikkönen. There was normally a car in a run-off area during the next few laps as the drivers struggled with cold tyres and a slippery track. Räikkönen held on to his impressive 3rd place for a couple of laps but was passed by Verstappen just before Sergio Pérez became the first casualty of the race, spinning his very jittery Racing Point and being collected by the wall. That brought out the first safety car of the day and the first wave of pit stop panic. Most cars came in for intermediate tyres and, in the pandemonium, Ferrari were punished with a fine for an unsafe release having sent Charles Leclerc out directly into Romain Grosjean’s path.
The rain stopped and the track began to dry up, but teams suspected more was on the way and were instructing their drivers to try and take care of their tyres. Daniel Ricciardo experienced an all-too-familiar Renault engine blow-up on Lap 15 and Leclerc used the ensuing Virtual Safety Car for a cheap pit stop. Suddenly he was the fastest car on track by two seconds a lap and rapidly closing in on the front three. A bit more rain had begun to fall but Kevin Magnussen and then Sebastian Vettel – who had started the race from the back of the grid – took the gamble of pitting for dry tyres; after initially sliding around, they began to set fastest sectors and those in front decided to follow suit.
Red Bull fitted the mediums to Verstappen, which take longer to heat up than the soft tyres. The Dutchman span – but survived with a neat 360 – and berrated his team over the radio for not giving him the softs. Another Renault engine blow-up – this time for the luckless Lando Norris – brought out another VSC on Lap 28. The race was about to turn on its head.
Leclerc benefitted again, pitting for soft tyres and leapfrogging Bottas for 2nd place. Hamilton, who had been controlling the race superbly from the front up to this point, then also pitted for softs. This top two would not last long however as Leclerc ran wide on to the slippery drag strip on the outside of the final corner and aquaplaned into the barriers and out of the race. Moments later, with a safety car already called, Hamilton suffered a near carbon copy of the incident but just about managed to keep the car moving, having bounced off the barriers. He had lost his front wing though and would need to pit.
This meant, firstly, he had to go the wrong side of the bollard at pit entry – which would earn him a five second penalty – and, secondly, that his engineers were not ready. Thus ensued a fairly comedic 50-second pit stop with engineers bumping into each other as they tried to replace the nose and changed their mind on which tyres to fit. Hamilton did eventually re-join in 5th; some blushes spared by the gap he had held and the safety car. In the meantime, most had now changed back to inters and the new top 5 was Verstappen, Nico Hülkenberg, Bottas, Alexander Albon, Hamilton.
The Mercedes cars worked their way back into the top 3 within a few laps and then, with that elusive podium in sight, agonisingly, Hülkenberg recreated the Leclerc/Hamilton incidents but with the Leclerc result of bogging down in the gravel and retiring. This brought out yet another safety car. Verstappen and Vettel pitted but the Mercedes did not. Just three laps after the restart, all the drivers came in for dry tyres and Racing Point’s gamble to fit them to Lance Stroll’s car during the safety car period meant that he was suddenly, unbelievably leading the race.
It didn’t take long for Verstappen to retake the lead of the race but we were left with a provisional podium of Verstappen, Stroll and the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat. Then another uncharacteristic error from Hamilton saw him spin at turn 1 on Lap 54, whilst chasing down. The championship-leader narrowly kept it out of the barriers but was forced to pit for new tyres and rejoined in last place. And then, just when Mercedes thought things couldn’t get any worse, Bottas – whilst chasing Stroll for 3rd – recreated Hamilton’s spin from a couple of laps prior but couldn’t keep it out of the barriers. He hit the wall, about as hard as Toto Wolff’s hand hit his desk, and was out of the race too. The safety car made its fifth appearance.
It returned to the pits on Lap 59, leaving a five-lap sprint race to the end. The race still had time for one more retirement as Pierre Gasly drove into the back of Albon whilst battling for 6th; a poorly-timed mistake from the under-fire Frenchman, with excellent performances from both the Toro Rosso drivers that are eyeing up his seat. Verstappen finished the job and sealed an almost flawless victory – his second of the season. Meanwhile Vettel, who had been steadily working his way through the field at various points of the race, sent the home fans wild by passing Stroll and then Kvyat for an unlikely 2nd place.
Behind Verstappen and Vettel, Kvyat took the final place on the podium – Toro Rosso’s second ever podium. Stroll held on to 4th, Sainz – who had at one point spun out and had to put it in reverse – claimed 5th, and Albon 6th. After the race, the two Alfa Romeos – who had finished 7th and 8th on the road – were given 30 second time penalties for driver aid infringements. This promoted the Haas drivers of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, who had conspired to crash into each other once again during the final laps, along with Hamilton to 9th and Robert Kubica to 10th. In a season where he has perenially been running in last place, the least likely of points scorers to cap the least likely of races.
And breathe.
Redemption in Red
A year on from his title-swinging, gut-wrenching crash in the rain at Hockenheim, Sebastian Vettel produced an inspired fight through the field to finish 2nd, having started the race at the very back of the grid.
It was not only a tale of the difference a year can make for Vettel, but also the difference 24 hours can make. For the second time in three races, he experienced a technical issue in qualifying as his Ferrari developed a turbo problem and he was unable to set a competitive time. Last place on the grid with rain forecast for Sunday always felt like a chance for redemption and that’s exactly how it played out.
Vettel, who was born just half an hour’s drive down the road from Hockenheim, got straight down to business. He was up to 10th by Lap 5; 7th by Lap 8. For the most part of the race he was then generally running in the low end of the top 10 – changing surprisingly little despite the madness going on around him. But he came alive towards the end of the race, using the straight line speed of the Ferrari and some tactical nous to pass cars before and after the final safety car period and collecting a well-deserved 2nd place.
It is a much-needed result for himself and his team. And particularly fitting that it occurred on the effective anniversary of his lowest point, in Germany last year. For a team that has been much-criticised for their strategic calls in recent years, Ferrari barely put a foot wrong in such a manic race and made up numerous positions for both cars with opportunistic pit stops.
Will this prove to be a turning point for team and driver? Time will tell. But it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
A Miserable Anniversary for Mercedes
For a team that had won nine of the first 10 races this season, one would imagine that this was just another weekend. But no, this one really mattered to the dominant force of recent F1 history that is Mercedes-Benz: it was one of their two home Grands Prix; they were celebrating (complete with special livery and fancy dress) the 125th anniversary of motorsport and their 200th Grand Prix; this was the one race they had given access to the Netflix crew of Drive to Survive. So for things to have gone this way will have especially hurt them.
In fairness, there were few truly major errors; it was mostly a domino effect from a few small ones. They dominated the first half of the race. Particularly so Hamilton, despite still suffering from illness, but that ended with the first switch to dry tyres. In hindsight, it was a bad call. Hamilton had a very comfortable lead and was saying that he didn’t think the switch was the right call – it was still raining after all. Could they have waited for a lap or two to see how things were progressing? Yes, but of course that is easy to say now. Either way, the call was made, Hamilton ran wide and then brought about an embarrassing pit stop as he was forced to pit immediately whilst the team had been waiting for Bottas with different tyres. The whole episode made the fancy dress element of their celebrations seem suddenly very clownish.
A few laps later, they were back running 2nd and 3rd but this is where the wheels were really about to fall off – literally in the case of Bottas. Again, in hindsight, they probably should have pitted Hamilton under the safety car and were overly wary of the five-second time penalty dropping him too far back when the drying track was about to make that issue far worse. But the drivers were about to outdo the strategists in terms of their mistakes with synchronised spins at Turn 1.
Hamilton rescued his but Bottas did not and his was far more costly. Hamilton does not present his competitors with an opportunity to claw back that many points in the title race very often. And for it to happen just as the Mercedes hierarchy is about to decide on their driver line-up for 2020 and beyond is particularly unfortunate. You have to wonder if Bottas will mentally recover from this setback.
It seemed Toto Wolff had decided after the race that they would not be making such a song and dance about any celebration in the future: “It shows that you shouldn’t fool around with stuff – you should concentrate on the job, we are not superstitious, but we should focus on the job at hand.”
The German Grand Prix in 90 Seconds (It needed the Extra 30)
Answering the Burning Questions
Will the run of great races continue? Oh yeah. And then some.
Can Bottas can do anything to claw back some of Hamilton’s championship lead? He had the opportunity but fluffed his lines.
Will Leclerc and Verstappen have another epic battle? Not this time. Verstappen battled with Bottas, Leclerc battled with the slippery drag strip.
Can Gasly continue the progress he made at Silverstone? No. He crashed badly during practice and drove into the back of the sister car of Albon.
There are a few updates this weekend. Whose will have the biggest impact? Hard to tell in the rain but judging by earlier in the weekend, Racing Point seemed to have made a big jump.
Could we actually have a wet race?? We could and did. And it was great.
